HR

Predictions

Hellraisers just lost to LC, but actually they’ve been playing pretty well lately. Hellraisers were actually the heavy favorites for that match, but they blew it. They lost a close game 1-2, and they really should have won. However they didn’t have Kucher, who’s been playing very well recently. Instead they had F1L1N from team Explosive. He didn’t do too well, and he had to “fill in” Kucher’s position which was pretty hard to do. While they played badly that game, it’s usually good to look at the bigger picture of results lately. That bigger picture is mostly Hellraisers doing pretty well. They beat SK 2-0 who have been playing really well, and they even beat Mouseports on Train. They’ve mostly been losing against the tier one teams they’ve been playing, but they’re playing really close matches. They nearly beat TSM about a month back, and they actually beat NiP on Overpass.

I really like the Hellraisers lineup, and it seems to be working out pretty well for them. Oskar is a great player with unreal aim, and when he awps it’s a scary thing to the other team. Styko is a player who can topfrag at the flip of a switch, and Scneider is an all around good player with lots of experience on his back. Kucher and Ange1, the original players from Hellraisers haven’t been doing as well a couple weeks ago, but recently they’ve been playing a lot better. Their T side has been really good, but their CT side is where they fall apart. If they want to win this match they really need to fix their CT problems, as Virtus Pro is a team who really likes to win the match on T side.

Virtus Pro honestly haven’t been playing well at all. At Faceit they looked better, but I’ll start at IEM San Jose. At San Jose they played Liquid, and looked terrible. They got destroyed by Liquid, even on one of their best maps, Mirage. They looked extremely bad, and no one played well on their team. They went straight to the Faceit finals where they started off with a close loss against TSM. This was again on Mirage, which Virtus Pro should have been favored on. They managed to take revenge on Liquid to beat them 2-0, but then they went down to Fnatic 1-2. They haven’t played any online matches since then, so I’m not sure what sort of state they’ll be in. One thing to note about Virtus Pro is that they’re very inconsistent online. One day they beat top teams easily, and the next they lose to teams like Dignitas and Mouz.

Hellraisers have a chance to get this, but Virtus Pro should be favored. The odds will change a lot before the match starts, but right now it’s definitely worth it to go small on Hellraisers. As long as Virtus Pro have more than 60%-65%, keep your bet. Hopefully this will be an underdog, but remember that I do favor Virtus Pro so no high bets. Good luck!

Just some context, this is the semi-final of CS:GO Champions League Season 2. The winner of this will go onto face off with Dignitas for the title and that first place prize money, while the loser will go onto face Na’Vi for 3rd place and that bit better prize.

HR have been… odd lately. They still don’t have a solid lineup, but playing with Schneider, who is expected, have looked good lately. But then again, they really haven’t when comparing them to VP and considering this is a BO3, and when you look at the fact they just lost to LC in a BO3 it’s even harder to see them taking this. Also just before that they barely managed to squeak by VegaSquadron, one of the maps going to overtime. They aren’t playing many official matches together lately, about two in the past three weeks, and it shows when you see them playing like 5 individuals. Which is just the opposite of how their opposition here play, who have been together for what seems like forever.

VP are going into this with some okay and some not okay performances. Since IEM where they had michu and went out 2-0 vs Liquid, they’ve lost a close one to TSM, won a close one vs Legacy (which was too close), crushed Liquid 2-0, and lost vs fnatic 2-1. This is a team who’s form can change so much from day to day, but this being an important match we should see them close to their A game.

Map wise VP pretty much dominate. They veto D2, and that leaves basically every map favoring VP. HR can’t go to their normal maps, i.e. cbbl, overpass, or cache, VP are amazing on all of them. Being a BO3 HR will be lucky if they get one map.

In this case I’d recommend to go medium on VP as long as the odds aren’t too bad.